The City of Madison updated a resource for residents to report problems, such as massive potholes or missed trash collection, last Thursday in effort to make communication between residents and city officials easier.
The Report a Problem website allows residents to report non-emergency problems in the city, such as bikeway, sidewalk or graffiti concerns, City Webmaster Sarah Edgerton said. The website’s upgrade made it a more responsive design, allowing residents to access the full website on their smart phones and other devices.
“Even though the city staff is out and about every single day, we are not going to see everything, and so by getting these reported to us, it makes our jobs more efficient,” Edgerton said.
The website is important for Madison residents because it allows them to give feedback to the city officials when confronted with a problem and for the City of Madison because they need to know the issues quickly in order to resolve them sooner, George Dreckmann, Streets Division spokesperson said.
The process of resolving the issue has a particular order it follows beginning with a resident’s report and ending with a report of resolution, Drekmann said.
On the website, the resident is asked if he or she has reported the problem already, Edgerton said. The city puts this in so they know if it is a secondary report, in order to see whether they are working on it, or have missed it and need to take care of it, she said.
According to Dreckmann, the assignment is then delegated to someone in the area and is kept track of until the individual or individuals have reported they have resolved the issue.
“If it is a graffiti report we send it to our graffiti abatement staff. Potholes will be reported to pothole crews that are out,” Dreckmann said. “We keep track of who we give an assignment to and report that they took action.”
Residents who have reported problems are also asked if they want to know when the issue is resolved, Edgerton said.
Dreckmann, who said the range of the reports in Madison varies seasonally, added that the website will help the city better respond to feedback and reports.
“On a year-round basis we get reports of missed collection of recycling,” he said. “In the winter we get a lot of feedback about snow and ice, potholes especially in the spring [and] graffiti picks up a lot in the warmer weather as well.”
In the winter, the City of Madison receives many reports of residents not shoveling their sidewalks or icy sidewalks and in the spring potholes tend to be the main issue, Edgerton said.
She said they consistently get about 60 general feedback reports a month.
The Report a Problem website is used daily by residents, Edgerton said, and the upgrade makes it easier for residents to notify the city of problems on site and the city can resolve them more quickly, she said.
